The disclosure relates to network communications and, more specifically, to techniques for indicating and changing network communication settings of a computer host.
Details about the basic structure of a baseboard management controller (BMC) of a computer host may be located in literature on IBM service processors, namely Integrated Management Module (IMM) and Integrated Management Module II (IMM2).
Conventionally, a computer host may have two different network interface controllers (NICs), namely, a general-purpose NIC for use of the computer host and a NIC dedicated to a BMC. The two NICs may have different MAC addresses and can be allocated to different IP addresses (see, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0161482).
For instance, the IBM IMM performs network communication using the general-purpose NIC of the computer host (known as a “shared mode”) or using the NIC dedicated to the IMM of the computer host. For further details, refer to Integrated Management Module User's Guides, Third Edition, published by IBM in February 2010.